Hanep ground his teeth. That was the problem. They were old lions like those in the royal menagerie at the Tower, caged and kept close. Of course there were distractions like Abbot Walter’s comely niece who resided with her guardian in the abbot’s luxurious guest house. Both women were a source of good gossip, as was the anchorite bricked up in his anker house in the abbey church. Rumour had it that he was a painter who became the Hangman of Rochester. According to whispers amongst the black garbed brothers of St Benedict, the anchorite had fled his grisly job after being plagued by the ghosts of some of his victims. Mind you, Hanep chewed the corner of his lip, it didn’t stop the anchorite still acting as the abbot’s hangman. Was the man really haunted? Was it true that the anchorite’s dead wife had once begged for help from himself and others in the Wyvern Company, only to be refused? Some story about outlaws in the Weald of Kent, who were later captured and hanged from the battlements of Rochester keep? The anchorite had laid such an accusation against them. Wenlock said he vaguely remembered it, Hanep certainly didn’t. Was the man madcap, his wits all fey? Indeed, Hanep felt a secret sympathy for that recluse; after all, didn’t the dead visit him as well, greyish-white shapes with blood-filled eyes and gaping maws to plague Hanep’s sleep? What could he do about them? Was it really too late to change? Wenlock said it was. They had discussed going on pilgrimage to Outremer and visiting the cave which served as a burial vault for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not to mention Adam and Eve. They had planned to see the cavern where the form of Aaron’s bed could be traced, the pillar of salt which had once been Lot’s wife, the house where Elijah had been born and the site of the thorn tree that had later been cut down to form the true cross. Hanep shivered. In truth they’d been more eager to feel the hot sun on their backs and sample the food, wine and other pleasures of Outremer. They certainly had to leave St Fulcher’s, at least for a while. Hanep felt uncomfortable, particularly with that sub-prior, the young Frenchman, Richer. Did Richer know the truth about how the Wyvern Company had plundered St Calliste outside Poitiers and stolen its brilliant bloodstone, the Passio Christi? Hanep and his comrades had claimed it as their own. The Crown had decided differently, ordering the bloodstone to be held in trust by one of its principal bankers and goldsmiths, Sir Robert Kilverby, on the understanding that he would pay monies into the royal exchequer as a pension for Hanep and his companions. Was the Passio Christi the reason why Richer hated them so much? Was he really here to seize it back? But that would be futile, surely? The bloodstone was securely held by Kilverby, who brought it to the abbey every Easter as well as on the feast of St Damasus. In fact, Kilverby, or his emissary, was due to arrive here tomorrow. He should bring the bloodstone for the Wyvern Company to view, as it had been agreed by solemn indenture, but Kilverby, although he still visited the abbey, now kept his distance from them. Wenlock claimed that was due to Richer’s influence. And yet, Hanep stamped his feet, Richer had proved very compassionate to old Chalk on his death bed. Had that old rogue confessed all his sins? Did Richer know the full truth? Mahant was certainly worried about that. Hanep stared up at the sky. Snow clouds were gathering. He heard a sound and whirled round.

‘Who’s there?’ Hanep peered anxiously through the murk, fingers stroking the steel coiled hilt of his long, stabbing dagger. He must move on. The sacristan would soon appear with his retinue of acolytes, candles burning, lanterns swaying, keys jangling. Hanep hurried on. He reached the cemetery lychgate, lifted the latch and slipped through the musty entrance into sprawling God’s Acre with its jumbled mounds, tumbled crosses and decaying tombstones. Here the silence was broken by the scurriers of the night. The hush-winged owl, rats scraping from beneath the stone-canopied tombs, as well as foxes foraging for any scraps amongst the thin layers of dirt which covered the dead. Hanep gazed around. Was this the thronging place of the ghostly dead, the stalking ground of the Custos Mortuorum, the Guardian of the Dead, the soul of the last person buried here? Hanep smiled grimly; that would be his boon companion, William Chalk. William, however, had been buried deep. He and Hanep had shared many a girl and a wassail-cup, and sung all the glee songs they knew, but that was in the past. Hanep put the lantern down and followed the pebbled path snaking around the crumbling monuments of the dead. He staggered and slipped over the occasional briar and trailing bramble. The breeze seemed to be stronger here, colder with a knife-edge cut. He pulled at his hood and tucked up the muffler of his cloak. He strained both eyes and ears. He had not forgotten that earlier sound, an alien one in the deserted silence of this place. Hanep, both sword and dagger now drawn, walked on. He passed the soaring cemetery cross with its stone figure of Christ in agony and continued on to Chalk’s grave, a freshly dug mound now glistening with hoar frost. The cross had slipped sideways. Hanep knelt, swiftly blessed himself, put down his weapons and made to straighten the cross. He heard a sound and whirled round, one hand going for the hilt of his sword — too late, too stupid! The hooded figure, black against the poor light, was already swinging back his great sword, a flash of shimmering light as it sliced deep into the side of Hanep’s neck. .

ONE

‘For my sins, truly I know them,’ Athelstan breathed as he plunged the rough rag back in to the bucket and splashed the herb-drenched water on to the last grey flagstone which lay before the door to his priest house.

‘My sin is always before me,’ Athelstan continued, ‘against you and you alone have I sinned. .’ Once he’d finished washing the flagstone, Athelstan, Dominican friar and parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark, proudly gazed round on what he’d achieved on this the Feast of St Damasus twenty days before the great celebration of the Nativity. He’d cleaned the house thoroughly. He had scrubbed and polished every nook and cranny. The small bed loft was all clean and sweet-smelling, its linen sheets, bolsters and blankets had been changed, and not a pewter dish or copper pot had been missed by him. After that Athelstan had turned his attention to what he mockingly called his solar, the great flagstone kitchen with its whitewashed walls and rough-stone hearth. Everything had been cleaned, from the tongs and pokers in the hearth to the large oaken table which served as both his supper bench and chancery desk.

‘What do you think, Bonaventure?’ Still kneeling Athelstan joined his hands in mock prayer and gazed fondly at the great, one-eyed tom cat sprawling before the crackling hearth like the Grand Cham of Tartary on his gold-encrusted divan. The cat, the prowling scourge of the needle-thin alleyways round St Erconwald’s, deigned to lift his head; he gazed sleepily at his strange master then flopped back as if the effort had proved all too much for him.

‘I know what you are waiting for, my friend.’ Athelstan scrambled to his feet. He emptied the pail of water, wrung out the cloth and walked back into the kitchen. He crouched before the hearth next to Bonaventure and stared hungrily at the blackened copper pot hanging by its chain above the darting flames. He closed his eyes and smelt the warm savouriness of the bubbling oatmeal, hot and sweet with the precious honey Athelstan had stirred in.

‘We’ll eat well, Bonaventure.’ Athelstan stroked the cat’s silky fur. ‘But not yet — God waits.’